


Fledgling

by basically_thearlaich



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types
Genre: Flying, Gen, Initiate sub-culture, Introspection, Jedi Culture, Jedi Temple (Star Wars), Rites of Passage, The Force, falling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29113515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basically_thearlaich/pseuds/basically_thearlaich
Summary: fledglingA juvenile bird during the period it is venturing from or has left the nest and is learning to run and fly; a young bird during the period immediately after fledging, when it is still dependent upon parental care and feeding.
Relationships: Feemor & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	Fledgling

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still working on _other_ things, but... I've had this lying around on my Drive for a while; knew what I wanted it to be and today... today was the day apparently. So have at it :) 
> 
> **!!!** "Scout" earns her name somewhere down the line in the Clone Wars and in this fic here I've called her "Tally" and yes, she's a contemporary of Ahsoka's here **!!!**

_Release your fear into the force_ , she reminds herself solemnly. The wind is a warm caress on her arms and her face, the late evening balmy and dry even if it is not a clear one. In the quickly setting darkness of the planet, four sets of eyes watch her back, a gently needling sort of curiosity and awe against her mind as she opens herself up to the Force to exhale her anticipation. Even so, there remains a small well of apprehension in the pit of her stomach.

In the privacy behind her closed eye-lids, she holds herself still in the sway of the evening breeze that whistles tenderly through the spires and the scrapers around them, whirls a handful of leaves around the awning underneath her. The last jut of the building that holds her away, yet, from the abysmal drop underneath her. Going on and on before pavement intercepts any fall abruptly and possibly brutally.

She pulls herself away from the curiosity. The need to see if she is going to do it or not. She’ll know that if she’s not going to do it, she’ll be the butt of jokes for years to come but--

That is not a good enough reason to do this.

Instead, settling lightly into the support of the duracrete beam under her feet, she exhales again. Reaches for the Force. Draws away from the curiosity of her peers and, instead, follows the song of Light deeper into herself. Deeper into her teachings. Deeper into--

 _\--calmness_.

She breathes into the ever present hum of serenity. The sensation of warmth. The ever-present embrace of knowing--

_\--even if this body dies, the Force has me._

The Force is almost tangible with its hold on her. A blanket of all that is. A wisdom beyond her age. Benign watchfulness around her shoulders. Vastness beyond her understanding. A well-spring of understanding that--

_\--this reality is only a construct, and so am I. Nothing is forever but I am safe in the Force._

It is with the knowledge that she is always held as a child of the Force that she bends her knees and hops off the ledge with a small, shuffling chassé.

The wind grips her almost immediately. A nippy coldness that zips past her montrals in a sharp, angry song. An admonishment of youth that bites into her skin and slaps her in the face, prying open her eyelids and lips with undeniable force, stinging her eyes into weeping blindness. Her heart lurches into her throat, clogging her airways and her stomach swoops up high into her chest until it dissolves into a million butterflies all over the insides of her chest, her heart, her arms, her feet--

The feeling spreads, a buzz of electricity throughout her entire body, and her awareness with it. The stretch of her mind reaches into the moment, into the inevitable-waiting-still permanence of the Force and the minuscule-repeating-ever-changing permutation of moments that last milliseconds as she _flies_. Down and nowhere at the same time, left-right-and-into-all-directions, spreading herself thin and almost intangible even as the rush of air cools her body to _ice_ as cold as Ilum and all she feels is _peace_. Being _held_ even in her airborne state and--

 _Now, little one,_ something hums, brightens on the edges of her mind, and the Force almost pushes into her ephemeral hold on it. Gathers in her hands and under her feet. Coils into a buffeting ball of softness that, all the same, makes her stumble when her soles first settle on solid ground again.

Her body tingles. Tickles. The tips of her montrals are frozen numb and she can’t feel her cheeks, stilled in a rictus of a smile as she looks up at the scraper and realizes, for the first time, the true meaning of the word _dazzling_.

Her breath is still coppery and her heart is still in her throat. Her stomach feels as if it is piecing itself together from its bare molecules but _what a triumph_ her blood sings into the blinking lights of the street.

[She only realizes that she’s crying through her laughter, when Tally lands next to her and stumbles into her waiting arms for an embrace.]

...

While it is true that age and time wash away much of the intensity of the emotions one tends to experience as a young sentient, he will never forget the sharp, clear, _truth_ he’d felt in those very moments when he’d passed his first rite of passage. The one that, ultimately, every Padawan, Knight and Master know of in their own way despite the fact that none of it is ever discussed anywhere else but in private.

It is the prerogative of youth to think themselves rebellious and original in all they do. Youth rarely lends itself to circumstantial thinking or the consideration of the larger picture. Thought that is an unkind assumption. He knows he would not have thanked anyone to talk like that about his age back then.

Rather, it is, perhaps, the fact that one tends to be most blind in regard to that which is most familiar. It takes long years of insight that, sometimes, is not even reached upon the completion of Knighthood to realize that what has been known as _home_ , too, should be scrutinized now and again.

As such, the Initiates he has the pleasure of covertly chaperoning tonight are maybe not quite aware that this particular idea of sneaking out and finding - or creating - trouble outside of the Temple in a fashion that would test the extent of their capabilities is a most time-honoured tradition.

It does, however, consist of two sides. Only one of which is made up by the Initiates causing mischief.

The other side is theirs.

Coruscant is a big city with a deep underbelly and most Guards have other worries than to keep an eye on a group of young ones in Temple-Garb. Given the general knowledge of these events among the more adult populace of the Temple, it usually falls to present and able Padawans and Knights to keep these unsanctioned excursions as safe as possible. That nothing has happened so far is one of the reasons that the Council turns a blind eye to these proceedings. And the care-taking of the younger generations is a duty to all of them.

After all, they’ve been here and they’ve done that. Their version of it anyway.

As it stands, Feemor has a bit of a vested interest in this year’s Senior Initiates. It’s nothing concrete yet, of course. Nothing official. But Master Yoda has expressed a rather pointed _interest_ in what looks to be the ring-leader of the small clan making their way up the scraper.

A young Togruta – marked a woman by rite of passage and the proof of teeth crowning her forehead, despite her physical appearance.

He has not been on Coruscant for years. His long Knighthood had given him the opportunity time and time again to attain Mastery for the missions he would complete. He would never, however, evolve past his Knighthood in the fashion that was most dear to his heart. With his Master’s disavowal of him, he may never be in the right to claim a Padawan for himself but--

\--this should not, and never has, stop him from heeding the call of the Force.

And call it does.

 _Look_ , it says.

And he watches from among the small group he, himself, is with. Their number is greater than that of the Initiates they are tailing knowing that if disaster strikes one can never be too prepared. In the Temple one of them is on-call in the Halls of Healing should anything truly devastating happen. A wise precaution, perhaps, given that Feemor has no recollection whether any particular group of Initiates had ever attempted something so reckless as this year’s.

He is shrouded in the shadows of the rapidly falling night with the rest of the observers. Two scrapers over from where the Initiates have made it to the very top of their own scraper, they have hidden themselves in the glare of the neon-signs below them and lightly shrouded their presences in the Force as not to startle their charges.

A quick debate breaks out, hushed whispers, though fervent, as it becomes clear that the time to act is nearing. Feemor is not ashamed to confess that he is the first to express his desire to go with the Togruta. She is not, he is appalled to realize, someone to fight over. A shame, he thinks gratefully. But there are those who feel that she is _too old_ to still be an Initiate of the Temple. Those who muse that she is, perhaps, not _proficient_ enough to be a Padawan in the field, when all her peers have been picked already by adequate Masters or Knights.

After the breathtaking rise of Obi-Wan Kenobi – almost a brother to him – Feemor would have thought people would come to curtail these thoughts. Especially considering the outstanding work he is doing with another candidate susceptible to having to suffer such murmurs. One who has ‘come too late’. Who had ‘too much to catch up on’ and yet is doing such a spectacular job of it. He may not be an exemplary Padawan in comparison to those who have never known anything else but the Temple Life but Anakin Skywalker is most certainly a Padawan who keeps prevailing admirably in the face of adversity no matter what corner it comes from.

Given the givens Feemor rather thinks that matters of age are trivial in the grand scheme of the Force at that. And even if he knows that he may never have her as a Padawan, no one can exactly deny him the chance to maybe get to know her. Just a bit. Just enough.

Just to know who it is that Master Yoda has come around to assign Anakin Skywalker who may have once been a brother to him as well.

A flash of red-iron-oxide catches in the bright, passing reflection of light. She is the first to toe the edge of the awning and the near-measureless drop that comes after it. Feemor is surprised, but proud, of her courage as he steps forward to his own ledge, even when he can see the bob of her throat as she swallows and tears her eyes away from her feet and that which lies below her.

Feemor breathes with her. Centres himself with a hush of voices behind him, reaches for calm, for her and, without looking, steps out of his shadow just as she hops forward and _falls_.

Years of doing this has made him near-immune to anything else but his awareness of the Force even in the act and it’s so easy – even over a distance – to _reach_ for her. Skim the very top of her thoughts and _feel_ the breathless disbelief that she is actually _doing_ this, the adrenaline-fuelled excitement that surges in her from her toes up to her head, the learning tone of wonder at the sharp sting of pain that can come from something as unexpected as wind and the profound _trust_ in the Force that she near projects as it hums around her and in her.

Her exhilaration echoes in his chest, in the quickening pump of his blood, the hitch of his breath and the giddy hop of his stomach and he could, maybe, fall with her forever like this. But their drop comes to a close and, even through their tenuous connection, the Force feels… It feels as if she doesn’t even have to reach for it. As if it had its own will as it buffets her and Feemor, just as gently, two blocks over, into the darkness of their prepared landing zone, buffers his own descent. Billowing the edges of his cloak and his tunics, before the soft soles of his boots touch down on the ground.

There are tears in his eyes, when he looks over to the young Initiate – soon to be a Padawan - whose joy is bright and dazzling and infecting in the Force through which they are still, gently, connected. Not inherently and not forever, but in this moment, it is as if the Force fulfils his deepest, truest, desire of feeling the joy of a Padawan.

Let the other chaperones look at him. The Outsider without a Master. He will never not allow the Force to move him. And _this one_ has a special stake in the big picture. Feemor can’t wait to hear of her.


End file.
